


A Heavy Heart to Carry

by theorchardofbones



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Ghosts of the Past - Freeform, Hallucinations, Rumination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 17:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16644218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorchardofbones/pseuds/theorchardofbones
Summary: Imprisoned on Angelgard, Ardyn rots in chains. As the days and nights blur into one, he's visited by shades from his past, and it becomes impossible to distinguish fantasy from reality.





	A Heavy Heart to Carry

The drip is back; has been for days. At times, Ardyn wonders if it ever really left at all.

But no — he thinks, as he listens to that dreadful, repetitive sound, that there are times when his corporeal prison lapses into blissful silence. He believes it comes and goes with the changing of the tides: a subtle, if vexing, reminder that the world goes on without him.

Let them have it, he thinks. Leave those puny, squalling mortals to their petty strife, to their wars and their intrigue.

There was a time when he took a very personal interest in their lives; a time when they’d thrown themselves at his feet to beg for his healing touch. Those same souls — to whom he’d so selflessly given salvation — had been so quick to cast the first stone when the gods had given their verdict.

The gods.  _ Pah. _ Where were they when the people suffered? When the scourge tore through the ranks of Solheim?

The anger, bitter and hot, fades as it always does; soon there’s nothing to distract him from his thoughts, and from that blasted  _ dripping. _

Even when he drifts into a restless slumber, the sound follows him: a relentless metronome to guide the rhythm of his dreams. And oh, the dreams — feverish and addled, at once a heady fantasy and more real than the dank, cold cell that has become his whole world.

He dreams of his youth, when he’d been but a carefree boy; dreams of the distant, sweet touch of lovers long past. Dreams of  _ vengeance, _ a prospect that grows sweeter with the passing of each day.

* * *

He awakens to the same monotone beat, to that ceaseless infernal rhythm, but he finds as he comes into awareness that there’s a peculiar quality to it — hollow, perhaps. He lifts his head, his hair so shaggy now he can barely see beneath the curtain of snarled auburn.

Footsteps.

He’s not alone, he realises, with an ache of  _ wanting _ so profound, so piercing that he’d fall to his knees were he not held aloft by his chains.

He tries to hide his eagerness as he tilts his head to the side, the better to look at his newfound companion. He can’t see much of them, dark as it is in this blasted place, but he thinks a shape begins to resolve itself from the shadows: tall and slender, a quiet confidence in the set of the shoulders.

He can’t fully see them, can’t quite make out the finer details. It seems to him this figure lingers rather  _ intentionally _ out of reach, just at the edge of his vision.

It’s infuriating. Another game from the gods, meant to torture him all the more.

‘Come to taunt me, have you?’ he calls. ‘To see the fruits of your labour?’

It’s a wonder to him that he can even muster up a voice after such a long period of disuse. That it comes out bitter and sardonic, just as he remembers, fills him with a petty sort of pride.

He resolves, in that moment, not to give them the satisfaction — much as it pains him, he holds his spine a little straighter even as the chains  _ pull _ at him, this way and that. He lifts his jaw in defiance, mustering as much dignity as he can with a tangle of hair shrouding his face.

The footsteps stop, for a moment. Whoever it is that has come to add to his torment, they seem to be contemplating him.

For the first time in his endless sentence, he feels fear. Fear of the unknown: fear of what comes next.

Once more those footsteps ring out, getting closer now, and he sees the figure approach him with purposeful strides.

‘What have you gotten yourself into now, my love?’

A man’s voice: deep but honey-sweet, as familiar as Ardyn’s own. At the mere sound of it, the old world comes flooding back to him — the world that was, before everything went to hell.

‘Gilgamesh,’ he murmurs.

It’s as though a torch has been lit, its glow blooming across the dark confines of the prison: Ardyn sees his lover’s face, beautiful and austere, and that ache of longing floods over him all the more.

‘My love,’ Gilgamesh says. ‘You sustain yourself with thoughts of vengeance, but have you considered that you’ve earned your place within these chains?’

His voice is a dulcet singsong, but the words cut through Ardyn’s flesh like the thorns of a rose. Of everyone, of all the people Ardyn has known, it’s Gilgamesh who should say such things — who should place the blame squarely on his shoulders.

Too right, he supposes, with weary resignation; out of anyone, Gilgamesh knows him best.

‘An eternal prison for a man undying,’ Ardyn says bitterly. ‘A fitting reward for one who condemned his mortal soul in order to purge the world of darkness.’

He sighs. He’s mulled it over ad nauseum; wondered at the injustice of it all. It does him no good to balk at the unfairness of the gods, when they’ve proved themselves such a spiteful and petulant bunch.

‘I suppose it’s as they say,’ he muses darkly. ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’ 

Gilgamesh raises a hand, and for a single, delirious moment Ardyn’s skin burns in anticipation of his old lover’s touch.

It does not come. Instead, Gilgamesh grips one of the chains, the one embedded between Ardyn’s ribs. He leans closer, close enough to touch were Ardyn’s hands not shackled above his head, and looks through the mop of Ardyn’s hair into his eyes.

‘You speak of good deeds,’ he says, ‘as though you know the meaning of such things.’

He wrenches the chain then, and agony washes over Ardyn — hot and cold in equal turns, filling his vision with blinding white. He sinks his teeth into his lip to keep from crying out, so hard he feels blood bead on the cracked surface.

All at once it stops: mercifully, the pain fades.

When his vision returns to normal, he’s alone. Pitifully, hopelessly,  _ eternally _ alone.

* * *

They send him visions — omens of the future kings of Lucis. As if to taunt him, they linger overlong on the monarchs who have something of Somnus about them: the same blue-black hair, so like the plumage of a raven; the same guileless smile.

_ They’ll be the death of you, his line, _ the visions say.  _ Your own brother, your very undoing. _

He could laugh, for all the fruitless attempts at taunting him. True enough it pains him still, that his beloved younger brother chose the throne over him — yet it gives him something to hold onto, some strand of hope, to know that one day there’ll be sweet  _ release. _

He knows of the prophecy, has had his head filled unwillingly with it. The chosen king, born to banish the long night — to put an end to the miserable existence of the Immortal Accursed.

Ardyn welcomes it.

When they send him visions again it’s not of his brother’s get, but of Somnus, his lips pulled into that maddening childlike smile.

But of course, a vision wouldn’t be nearly torture enough; no, they’ve sent Somnus himself, flesh and blood, and as his voice rings out within the blackened chamber of Ardyn’s prison, it’s as needles in Ardyn’s skull.

‘Brother,’ Somnus says.

Ardyn feels venom well up within his throat. Had he the freedom — the strength — he’d wrap his emaciated fingers around the boy-king’s throat and strangle the life from him.

‘Somnus,’ he spits.

Somnus laughs. The sound is like the ringing of a bell.

‘Dear Ardyn,’ he says. He leans against a wall, arms folded carelessly across his chest. ‘Have you missed me, brother mine? I’ve missed  _ you.’ _

Oh, how it would please him, Ardyn’s sure, to know he was  _ missed. _ To make it all about  _ him _ once more, as he always does.

Ardyn won’t give him the satisfaction.

‘What an honour,’ Ardyn says, his voice dripping with sardonic vitriol. ‘What a  _ privilege _ that the Founder King deigned to step down from his throne and  _ grace _ my humble cell with his presence.’

Somnus seems unmoved by his brother’s barbed words, magnanimous — positively  _ smug, _ even — as always.

‘Dear brother,’ Somnus says, with a shake of his head. ‘You’ve had so much time to ruminate on your actions. Surely you’ve seen the error of your ways?’

A disgruntled sound rumbles up from Ardyn’s throat and bursts forth in an exclamation of disgust. Of  _ course _ Somnus would take the Astrals’ side; he always  _ was _ the golden child.

‘My only error,’ Ardyn snarls, ‘is believing the bond of blood was stronger than your greed.’

His words echo back to him, twisted and distorted by the walls of his prison: in a flash, crystals of light splintering in the air, Somnus is gone.

* * *

His throat is parched. What he wouldn’t give to press his tongue to the walls of his cell and lick even the elusive trickle of rainwater from their surface.

It’s his own fault, he knows — once Somnus had vanished, he’d thrown his little tantrum, screaming bloody murder for no one to hear. Might have done some real damage, too; but of course, he’ll heal as he always does.

He must be weak with exhaustion, he thinks, as the darkness around him seems to swim, to shimmer and shift.

He shuts his eyes, lets the void press in on him. Feels the swirling darkness surround him as though it were a robe of the very finest silk.

He sleeps. Fractured dreams come to him — of Somnus, wearing the face of another; of a world of night; of a piercing dawn, spreading across the land.

The gentlest of touches rouses him, so soft he thinks he might have imagined it. It’s the faintest, most tantalising sensation, like the wisp of a butterfly’s wings; it sets a shiver winding down the column of his spine, and as he stirs he sets his chains clinking melodically around him, a chorus of metal and rust.

He feels it again, by the raw and open wounds of his chest, where his flesh festers around the anchors there; hears the musical sound of water trickling into a bowl, feels a cloth tend gingerly to his wounds. When he tries to crack his eyes open they’re heavy with sleep, but through the veil of his lashes he sees a pale figure in front of him.

A question burbles up on parched lips —  _ Who are you? —  _ but only a choked sound emits, so unlike his own voice.

The contact lets up. Disappointment threads through him, and starved as he is for it — for the touch of another — he leans unconsciously towards it.

Cool fingers touch his lips, water beading at their tips.

‘Drink,’ a woman’s voice says, soft and low.

He darts his tongue out, lets the droplets trickle down into his mouth; even as his parched throat screams out for more, she’ll only let him have a few drops at a time. When he’s had enough that he feels marginally more human than before —  _ human, _ indeed — her hand pulls away and he’s left darting his tongue out in the air, desperately seeking her out like a babe rooting for his mother’s bosom.

‘More,’ he begs, his voice cracked and unfamiliar. When he speaks again, it’s a command:  _ ‘More.’ _

‘No,’ she says. ‘Later.’

He hears the soft padding of footsteps moving about; strains under the curtain of his hair to see where she’s gone. He follows the path of her footsteps as they echo through the chamber, and as he pinpoints the sound behind him now, he feels the warm brush of her breath against his shoulder.

She’s silent as she works: her fingers comb through his hair, gentle but deft, untangling weeks and months and years of snarls. As her nails rake softly, methodically over his scalp, he closes his eyes and lets the sensation wash over him.

She pulls his hair out of his eyes with one hand and secures it behind his head with the other. When she lets it hang, it’s heavy against his back — how long must it be now? — but it’s mercifully out of his face, out of his eyes.

Ardyn hears the sharp  _ snick _ of a blade cutting through it, feels the strands flutter against his back as they fall away. When she’s done, the tail of hair left hanging between his shoulder blades is considerably lighter.

He’s afraid, as she steps around him, to open his eyes — afraid that if he does, he’ll find she’s been the product of his imagining all along.

He’s still clenching them shut when he hears the clink of metal against stone; hears the soft splash of water. 

‘Hold still,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to cut you.’

Of course, Ardyn can only wonder at the meaning of her words — but then he hears the  _ snick _ of the blade again, cutting through the dense hair of his beard. He feels lighter still as the hair falls away, as though he’s a new man.

She touches a hand to his jaw next, and the blade glides easily over his skin as she angles him this way and that.

Whether she’s well-practiced at this or merely an attentive soul, she finishes up without a single nick. When she’s done, she pats his skin dry with another cloth.

Her fingertips come to his lips again, beaded with moisture; he sucks the water greedily from them, and this time she allows him a little more.

‘Thank you,’ he says.

It’s a simple phrase of gratitude, yet it strikes him that it’s one he hasn’t had cause to utter in so very long. These acts of kindness have left him raw in a way that no chain, no festering wound can; he’s unspeakably grateful to this soft-spoken stranger, and yet still he’s afraid to open his eyes lest it turn out to be another fever dream.

He thinks she murmurs  _ ‘You’re welcome’ _ as she turns away, but her voice is lost in the echoes of the cavern.

For a long while after, she stays with him in silence. He wants to ask her why she’s doing this — why she’s shown him so much charity, when he deserves none of it — but he’s terrified of the answer.

He dozes, in spite of all his best efforts at remaining awake; it’s a dreamless, restful slumber, and when he stirs he feels her hand, soft and gentle, soothe him back to sleep.

She leaves while he’s still deep in oblivion; when he wakes he can feel the imprint of her kiss upon his brow, cool as marble.

* * *

The visits — the  _ visions —  _ cease after her. No further shades come to taunt him, and he’s left wondering what out of all of it was real.

With no sense of the passing of time, Ardyn can’t be sure how long he’s been imprisoned here, but it feels like many lifetimes. For Somnus, for Gilgamesh, to still be alive — it seems improbable, if not impossible. Shades, then, he decides; echoes from his past, sent to taunt him.

Yet with  _ her, _ he’s not so sure. It had felt a curious dream, certainly, to be treated with such tender care, and yet when he’d awoken his hair had still been tied neatly out of his face, his wounds still gently tended.

His life, pitiful existence that it is, returns to its old, dull monotone. The drip picks up again as the seasons turn to rain; his dreams become tumultuous once more.

At times he believes he has company again as he slumbers, though he wakes to find himself alone in the unending darkness.

This is his torture: his eternal torment. Not the chains, impaled within him; not the taunts on the lips of his brother, of his first love. No — the astrals have a more fitting punishment for him, and it is solitude: an eternity to rot alone in a pitiful tomb, with only his wretched soul for company.

And yet, somehow, when night and day cease to have all meaning, when his emaciated body weakens and fails and is reborn anew, over and over again, there is one little glimmer of hope to hold onto — one scrap of consolation to keep him going.

That  _ hope _ has a name; he knew it once as  _ Shiva, _ and later as  _ Gentiana. _ That hope is the soft brush of fingertips through snarled hair; the taste of cool, clear water upon a parched tongue.

That hope is redemption, and the belief that he’ll be worthy one day — if he can only open his heart to his humanity once more.

**Author's Note:**

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